


Happy Birthday Mr Burns

by elaine



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Blair in a kilt, First Times, Holiday, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-10-29
Updated: 2001-10-29
Packaged: 2017-12-11 07:11:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/795292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elaine/pseuds/elaine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blair's wearing a kilt, and Jim has a bad feeling about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Happy Birthday Mr Burns

**Author's Note:**

> This was my first ever Sentinel story. forgive me.

 

"Sandburg, what are you doing?"

Blair swung around with a flash of bare knees, an innocent expression on his face. "It's great isn't it? You like it?"

Jim Ellison shifted his weight from one foot to the other and declined to comment on the attractiveness or otherwise of his roommate. "You're not Scottish. Why are you wearing a kilt?"

Blair beamed at him. "We're celebrating Robbie Burns' birthday at the university next week, so I thought I better get used to wearing a kilt." He smoothed the cloth down. "It's a Royal Stewart tartan. That's what you wear if you don't have one of your own."

In fact he did look good, if a lot like an extra from Braveheart, with the bright tartan and a loose white shirt and his hair tumbling wildly around his shoulders. Instead of dress shoes and knee length socks he was wearing a pair of boots and the heavy socks he wore for tramping, leaving most of his legs bare. Jim frowned and pinched the bridge of his nose. He had a bad feeling about this. "Let me get this straight. You're planning on wearing this kilt all week?"

"Yeah. You know it's really very comfortable, Jim. You should try it sometime." Blair was almost bubbling with enthusiasm.

...a  _very_  bad feeling. "Sure, Chief. If I never want to be taken seriously as a cop again." An awful thought occurred to him. "You're going to come to the station dressed like that?"

Blair didn't bother to answer. He just stood there looking mildly confused. Of  _course_  he was going to go to the station dressed like that. It had probably never occurred to him not to. This looked like being a very long week.

* * *

"Hey, nice threads man."

"Thanks." Blair grinned at the young punk who was being escorted in the direction of the holding cells. "You see? It's okay, Jim."

Jim just grunted. He couldn't wait till Simon got a load of this. Still, he was glad Simon wasn't anywhere in sight right now. He didn't think he was quite ready for Simon's sarcasm this early in the morning. He poured himself a coffee and got stuck into the paperwork. "Haven't you got anything to do?"

Blair sipped from his mug. "I finished grading those paper and I don't have any classes till this afternoon."

"Then you can check these." Jim handed him a stack of files. No way was he going out on the street with Blair wearing a skirt. "Just don't correct the spelling this time, okay?"

"But Jim..." Blair intercepted his glare and subsided. "All right, no corrections."

Time passed. Most of the other detectives, used to Blair, did nothing worse than wolf whistle or laugh at the sight of him. Still no sign of Simon. Jim felt his nerves getting more an more wound up the longer he waited. He hadn't thought about Cassie.

She came into the Bullpen with that attitude of 'I belong here and don't you try to tell me I don't' that she always had. Slightly defensive, but mostly just damn pushy. She smiled widely at the sight of Blair's bare legs. "Hey, you look  _great_  Blair. I always think kilts look so sexy."

Blair, predictably, started preening. He nudged Jim's side with his elbow. "See Jim? I told you women love it."

He buried his head in the folder, currently open on the desk. "Oh, please."

"No, it's true, Jim." Cassie's grin stretched from ear to ear now. "It's that thing about not wearing any underwear, I think."

No underwear? He stared up at Cassie in horror. Surely Blair wouldn't... he looked at Blair who refused to meet his eyes. Blair obviously would. Jim snapped the folder shut. "That does it. You're not going anywhere with me if you're not wearing underwear."

"Awww... lighten up, Jim. It's traditional."

"It's indecent. Go home and put some shorts on." Jim tried his best 'you'll do what I say' look. It failed miserably. "I mean it. You're not going anywhere with me like that."

"Fine." Blair crossed his arms over his chest and sulked.

"Fine." Jim stuck his nose back into the folder and tried not to notice Cassie walk away laughing.

They were still studiously ignoring each other when Simon came in. Jim covered a triumphant smile; at last someone who would back him up with this kilt business. Simon disappeared into his office and came out with a file, heading directly for Jim's desk.

"Ellison, I want you on this case. They're expecting you, so get over there pronto." Simon, as usual was sticking firmly to the point. He held the file out to Jim, then turned to Blair. "I never knew Sandburg was a Scottish name."

Jim smiled. You could always count on Simon.

"It's not, Simon... oh... right." Blair smiled weakly. "I'm getting ready for a party at the university next week. Scottish costume."

Simon cocked an eyebrow. "So that's why the Royal Stewart, huh?"

"You  _know_  what tartan that is?" They both turned to look at Jim, who instantly regretted opening his mouth.

"Doesn't everybody? I wear the McGregor, myself." Simon  _seemed_  to be serious, though Jim couldn't always be sure whether he meant some things, or was being sarcastic.

"You're a McGregor? Like Rob Roy? Cool!" Blair perked up.

Jim couldn't let that one pass. "Excuse me?  _You're_  a McGregor?"

Simon stared at Jim as though he was something that had stuck to the sole of his shoe. "Sure. On my mother's side. Her great-great-grandfather was Scottish. Helped with the Freedom Trail. Married an ex-slave. Mom was into genealogy and she found out all about it."

"He's not wearing any underwear!" Jim hadn't meant to blurt that out. Heat rose in his face as Simon's stare became even more imperious.

"Naturally. Now are you two going to get on with this case anytime this week?"

Thoroughly defeated, Jim rose from his chair. "On my way, sir. Sandburg." He could feel Blair's grin burning a hole in the centre of his back.

* * *

If Jim had thought to wonder why a photographer was being sent death threats, he wouldn't have had to wait long to find out. They arrived in the middle of a photo shoot involving two young men of extraordinary beauty getting very friendly with each other. Nothing, as the photographer was at pains to point out, that was pornographic. His work was  _erotica_.

Blair didn't help matters by jumping headlong into a discussion about the difference between porn and erotica. Jim cut them both short with a terse request for the hate mail the man had been receiving.

"I'm sorry, I don't know what I was thinking." The photographer darted towards a large desk on the other side of the room, while the two young men disengaged themselves and stalked off in opposite directions. Jim followed him. "I've been rather distracted by all this."

After a rapid search of the various drawers, the papers were found stashed away in a small cardboard box. On the floor under the desk. "Here they are. I put them all back in their envelopes. You'll need those too, won't you?"

His fingerprints were probably all over them, and if the sender had any sense at all, he would have worn gloves, but still... "We'll do what we can. If you get any more don't open them, just call us, all right?" Jim glanced back at Blair and saw him deep in conversation with one of the models. At least the model was now wearing a thin robe.

"Jim!" Blair greeting him with a broad smile. "This is Dave. We were just talking about kilts."

Jim managed not to groan. "Don't tell me. You wear one too. Does everyone in Cascade wear a kilt?"

Dave's eyes gleamed. "The guys love them. So do the chicks, believe me."

Jim felt his eyebrows rising. "Uh..."

"I'm Bi." Dave looked him up and down then turned back to Blair. "So are you doing anything Saturday night?"

"No, I'm..."

"Yes you are, Chief, remember?" Jim hurried to interrupt. If Blair was going to let this guy pick him up, he could do it another time, preferably when Jim wasn't there to see it. "We've got that... um, that meeting."

"I have?" Blair looked bewildered for a moment, then he grinned. "Oh, yeah...  _that_  meeting." His eyes promised that Jim would pay for this, and pay dearly. "Sorry, Dave, maybe some other time."

Dave shrugged sulkily. "Maybe." He glanced over his shoulder to where the photographer was fussing with the cameras. "I better go." He shrugged off his robe, making sure they got an eyeful before turning and moving away in a deliberately sexy prowl.

Blair watched the retreat for a moment before looking innocently up at Jim. "You got everything you need, Jim?"

Jim growled under his breath.

* * *

The next day Blair exchanged his shirt for an unnecessarily tight T-shirt and a leather jacket. Jim spent most of the day following him around watching women go weak at the knees and trying not to notice how the pleats swirled around the back of Blair's knees as he moved. He wondered, briefly, how Blair would look with blue face paint.

* * *

"So, what time is the meeting, Jim?"

It took a while for the words to filter through the cheering from the television. Jim watched the fans crowding around the football players for a moment longer, then hit the mute button. "What meeting?"

"You know... the  _meeting_." Blair looked innocent. "The meeting we're going to tonight."

Jim sighed. "You know damn well there's no meeting."

He glared over at Blair, who was sitting on the couch, then hurriedly averted his eyes. He'd  _told_  Blair about keeping his knees together more than once, but it made no difference. It wasn't as if he could actually see anything above mid thigh. It was just the principle. He was beginning to suspect Blair was doing it deliberately to make him squirm. No, he was  _sure_  Blair was doing it deliberately to make him squirm.

"You lied about the meeting?" Blair didn't even try to sound convincing. "Now it's Saturday night and I haven't got a date. This is  _so_  not cool."

Jim's temper, well and truly frayed by four days of watching Blair flouncing around Cascade in a kilt, finally gave way. He lurched up out of the armchair and strode over to the couch. Before Blair could stand, he pushed his roommate back into the couch and kept him there by placing his hands on the back of the couch on either side of Blair's shoulders and leaning in so their faces were practically nose to nose. He growled.

"What?" Blair's air of bewildered innocence was almost perfect. "What have  _I_  done?"

"You've been driving me crazy all week." Jim forced the words out from between clenched teeth. "Deliberately."

Blair looked outraged. "I have  _not_."

"Have too." Jim realised suddenly that his response was somehow lacking in maturity. "Would you really have gone out with that show pony just to annoy me?"

"Don't you mean stallion?" Blair looked up at him demurely through irritatingly dense lashes.

Jim hissed. "I know what I mean. You're just doing this to annoy me."

"No, I'm not." Blair said the words quietly, calmly. "I'm not Jim."

The breath rushed out of him in a huge sigh and Jim pulled back, dropping to his knees in front of Blair. They stared at each other in silence. For the first time since he'd met Blair, Jim felt defeated, at a loss to know how to deal with him. Or, at least, none of the options he wanted to try seemed the least bit feasible.

Blair looked away first, turning his head to stare out the window. "So this guy meets this Scotsman, right? And he asks if anything's worn under the kilt. And the Scotsman says no, everything's in purrrfect worrrking orrrderrr..." Blair rolled his 'R's in an outrageous parody of a Scottish accent.

Jim rolled his eyes. Blair was smiling at him. "And is it?" A pulse began to beat, deep and portentous, in his throat. He swallowed hard. "I mean, in working order?"

"Why don't we find out?" Blair whispered the words so softly that Jim almost thought he'd imagined them.

He took a handful of dark curls and drew Blair towards him until their lips met. Not surprisingly, Blair was a good kisser. Jim had always thought he would be, even if he'd never expected to have first hand knowledge. Their lips seemed to mould themselves together perfectly, allowing Jim to get on to the serious business of exploring Blair's mouth in thorough and intimate detail.

Blair's fingers were stroking his cheek lightly and Blair was making sensuous little noises against his lips. Jim could feel the sounds vibrating against his tongue. He did what any red-blooded American male would do in this situation... he put his hand firmly on Blair's knee and slid it a few inches up under the kilt. Blair wriggled against him and his hand moved a little higher.

It felt strange to have soft scattered hairs tickling his palm. Strange, but very good. Encouraged by Blair's eager response, Jim started stroking the solid, muscular thigh, working his hand higher still. Blair broke away with a gasp.

"Oh man, that's good." Blair grinned at him, breathing heavily. "You mind if I..." his hands slid under Jim's sweater.

The sensations were intensifying and Jim had to struggle not to focus on any one of them. Zoning out in the middle of making love with Blair for the first time was  _definitely_  not a good idea. Blair would probably never forgive him.

"What are you grinning at?" Blair sounded distinctly peeved.

"Nothing." Jim kissed him again. Why had he never realised what an effective silencer that was?

Somehow Blair had managed to get Jim's sweater off over his head without him noticing. His hands moved over Jim's bare chest stroking and teasing, ruffling the short hairs and pinching his nipples. Jim groaned helplessly. He lowered his head to kiss the base of Blair's throat and was almost overwhelmed by the pheromones rising from under the kilt. The same pheromones he'd been breathing in all week, he suddenly realised. No wonder he'd been on edge.

"Blair." He mumbled the name into Blair's throat, and had to repeat himself before Blair heard him. "What date is Robbie Burn's birthday?"

"January twenty-fifth. Why?" Blair stiffened suddenly. Jim thought he heard a sub-vocalised curse.

"January." He stared at Blair accusingly. "It's August, for crying out loud. There isn't any party at the university, is there?"

"Uh... well..." Blair's eyes darted about the room seeking inspiration and not finding any. "Not exactly."

Jim pressed his advantage. "And you've been wearing that kilt just to drive me crazy."

Blair licked his bottom lip nervously and Jim's groin tightened. "Well..." he gave Jim his patented 'you can't be angry with me, I'm too adorable' look.

It had never worked on any of Blair's girlfriends that Jim had been able to see, but it whammied him into submission in a split second. He sighed and began to unbutton Blair's shirt. "Have you ever thought about painting your face blue?"

"Like Mel Gibson?" Blair brightened. "Hey that would be cool! We should have some Celtic music. I've got a CD somewhere."

He started to struggle up out of the couch and Jim put his hand on the now bare chest to stop him. Not coincidentally, it was resting over the hard peak of a nipple. Jim brushed his palm over it thoughtfully enjoying the way that Blair almost melted against his touch. Unfortunately, it seemed that Blair wasn't wearing his nipple ring today.

They kissed again and then Jim lowered his head to suck the peaking nipple.

"Oh yeah... oh, maaaan..." Blair's breathless voice echoed above his head. Jim nibbled the tip gently and Blair almost erupted out of the couch.

Both Jim's hands were on Blair's thighs now and the heady scent of pheromones, his own as well as Blair's, was just about driving him crazy. He gave Blair's nipple one last, long, loving suck and pushed the kilt up out of the way. "Time to check for wear and tear." The husky voice hardly seemed to belong to him.

His eyes travelled up the tanned, slightly hairy thighs to the dense patch of hair at Blair's groin and locked onto the sight of Blair's cock, thick and smooth, a little on the short side and coloured a deep, dusky pink. His mouth went dry as he took in the gleaming wetness of the cockhead and the tiny pearl of precum gathering in the slit. As he watched it spilled over and slid lazily across the deeply flushed skin.

Automatically, he reached out to prevent it from tipping over the fleshy ridge and onto Blair's thigh, and then was left with a drop of moisture burning his fingertip and no immediate idea what to do with it. Blair solved his dilemma by drawing Jim's finger up to his mouth and licking it clean. Jim took a deep breath, feeling as though his lungs were starved of oxygen and plunged his tongue into Blair's mouth.

Yes! He could taste it. Faint but distinct; unlike anything he'd tasted before, and he'd tasted a lot of things in his time. He emerged, at once satisfied and hungry for more. This time there was no uncertainty as he sucked the length of Blair's cock into his mouth. The mingled tastes assailed him, and Jim struggled to separate and define each one, needing to make sense of them before he lost it completely. There was the once experienced and now familiar taste of Blair's precum. The salty tang of sweat, a faint hint of soap from the morning's shower well and truly overlaid by the Blair-odour that was natural to him. Through it all came the cock-hardening, musky aroma of male sexual arousal.

Blair's heartbeat throbbed against his tongue and reverberated in his head, until Jim thought he'd explode. Forced to relinquish Blair's cock, Jim stared up at his flushed face and dazed eyes with a mixture of sheer lust and helpless longing. His mind had long ago ceased to function and his instincts had got him this far, but seemed unable to direct him now. Blair blinked at him.

"Jim, are you okay?" Blair reached for him, but Jim caught his hand and kissed the palm. "You're not zoning out on me are you?"

"I..." he forced himself to take two, three deep breaths. "I'm just a bit overwhelmed. I haven't..." he stopped and then continued defiantly. "I haven't been with anyone special since we started doing this Sentinel thing. It's different. More intense."

"Special?" Blair smiled at him with an almost childlike delight. "Me?"

"You know that already, Chief."

"Yeah. It's special for me too, Jim." Blair's eyes were open and honest, no fooling around now, not with this. It was far too important and they both knew it.

Jim simply nodded, since his throat was too tight to allow him to speak. Blair was sprawled before him like a gilt edged invitation. His shirt was wide open and falling off his shoulders, his hair a dark, unruly halo surrounding China blue eyes and a perfectly kissable mouth. Jim's eyes moved down to the bright cloth framing bare thighs and a proudly erect cock. He bent over it, tasting with the tip of his tongue before pressing his lips to the moist, silky crown. The subtlety of the different textures was astonishing; the slick, smooth cockhead, the velvety skin of the shaft and the loose crepe textured skin of the balls. Jim could feel every tiny gnarling vein running beneath the surface, conduits for the pure, molten lust that surged through them.

Every breath Blair took was a moan of anguished desire. The whole lower half of his body was shaking with the effort of remaining as still as he possibly could. Something would have to give soon, and Jim didn't think it would be Blair. It didn't really matter; the moment one gave way, the other would be drawn helplessly along in his wake.

Jim pulled back, and froze. It was almost impossible to think, or to move, only the touch of his lips against Blair's cock had any reality for him now. It was Blair who took charge, hurriedly reaching for Jim's pants and dragging them down off his hips, then tearing at his boxers until his cock lifted free of the tangling cloth.

"Oh boy..." Blair grinned nervously. "Come on Jim, help me out here."

Blair's hands tugged at him and he shuffled closer, still on his knees. The touch moved to his cock and he was soaring, blind and deaf to his surroundings; alive only in the places where Blair's skin touched his own. He felt rather than heard his own cry and the sudden loss of balance as Blair pulled him into his arms. Blair's scent overwhelmed him again, Blair's mouth possessed him, Blair's hands gave him all the joy the world had to offer. Blair's cock, finally, against his transmuted the world into unreality.

Blair's kilt made his belly itch. Jim opened his eyes and found he still couldn't see. Instinctive panic gave way to relief when he realised his face was buried in Blair's tangled mane of hair. He lifted his head cautiously. He wouldn't have been at all surprised if it had fallen off and rolled to the floor, but it didn't. Blair was lying at a dangerous angle, almost ready to tip over onto his side. His head was flung back, his jaw hung open and he was snoring quietly.

Jim straightened slowly and with much soft groaning. He was getting too old for making mad passionate love while kneeling on the floor. That reflection reminded him that his knees hurt even worse than his back. He twisted around so he could sit and pull the tangle of pants and underwear off altogether. Blair was practically naked except for his boots and socks, like a poster boy for a gay porn mag. Better than those two he'd seen at the photo shoot. And there were smears of jism all over his chest. Jim rubbed a hand absently over his own chest and grimaced at the stickiness.

First step, then, was to clean up. He stumbled to the bathroom and wiped himself down, then returned to do the same for Blair, who didn't even stir. The boots came off and the socks and Jim lifted Blair's ankles and tipped him onto his back. Blair slept through it as peacefully as a baby. After that it was easy to remove the shirt and kilt. Now Blair looked even more like a gay pinup... Jim crawled onto the couch.

He would have liked to cover Blair with his body, but that might be a bit too much for Blair to wake up to. He wrapped his arms around his lover and rolled onto his back, pulling Blair on top of him. The throw from the back of the couch would do for a cover for them both, it wasn't that cool even though the light had faded almost to full night. Blair's weight was comfortable enough and the rumble of his gentle snoring was curiously comforting against Jim's chest. He drew in a deep breath and a mouthful of hair. Spat it out. More curls tickled his nose and he sneezed. Life was good.

 


End file.
